Australia’s central bank unexpectedly raised its benchmark interest rate from a 49-year low by a quarter percentage point amid signs the nation’s economy is strengthening. Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens increased the overnight cash rate target to 3.25 percent from 3 percent in Sydney yesterday.

Only one of 20 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News forecast today’s decision. The rest predicted no change. Australia is the first Group of 20 nation to raise borrowing costs since the start of the global financial crisis more than a year ago. Rising job vacancies, retail sales and house prices, plus surging business and consumer confidence support Stevens’ view the economy is accelerating enough to scrap the bank’s “emergency” rate setting.

“It makes sense for the Reserve Bank to start the tightening cycle at the earliest opportunity,” Stephen Walters, chief economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in Sydney, said ahead of today’s increase, which he forecast. There has recently been “a near uninterrupted stream of healthy economic data.”

Governor Stevens, who cut the benchmark lending rate by a record 4.25 percentage points between September 2008 and April to cushion the economy against fallout from the global credit squeeze, said on Sept. 28 that compared with past recessions, “this has been a good episode for Australia.”

“In due course, both fiscal and monetary support will need to be unwound as private demand increases,” Stevens told a Senate committee in Sydney.